


The most amazing adventure

by Kismetcanbiteme



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Mention of Suicide, F/F, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, One Shot, Post-Finale, TW Suicide mention, how it should have ended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26992462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kismetcanbiteme/pseuds/Kismetcanbiteme
Summary: It’s been a few weeks now since they were left here to live out the last years of the human race, and already they’ve begun to build and plan their camp. They’ve started to hunt and fish and settle. It’s like all the idyllic pictures in her Earth skills textbook combined. Unlike when they first landed, they actually know what to do and how to survive, so all that’s left… is to live.It doesn’t take Clarke long to realize she's really, really bad at that.Coming back to Earth is one thing. Coming back to Earth with no one to fight and no one to fight for is like crashing down from an adrenaline high that started when she was seventeen. Not fun.And she’s alone.Or: I added a better ending to an objectively wtf finale. You're welcome
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 7
Kudos: 188
Collections: The 100 Fix Its and Rewrites





	The most amazing adventure

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know it's Clexa week, but pumpkin spice can wait for a sec.

Realistically, Clarke knows this is a punishment. She also knows this punishment could be far worse than it is. Her friends, her family really, could have chosen to transcend and leave her to live out the rest of her life truly alone. The Judge could have chosen a worse planet than Earth to strand her on. They could have just chosen to kill her immediately, snuffing out the human race in one final motion.

So yes, Clarke knows it could be worse.

Which explains the guilt she’s feeling now for being so,  _ so  _ lonely.

No, she isn’t alone as she feared, and she’s grateful for the sacrifice she knows each of her friends made to be with her.

And that’s part of it. They gave up eternal life and peace just so she wouldn’t feel exactly the way she’s feeling now. 

It’s been a few weeks now since they were left here to live out the last years of the human race, and already they’ve begun to build and plan their camp. They’ve started to hunt and fish and settle. It’s like all the idyllic pictures in her Earth skills textbook combined. Unlike when they first landed, they actually know what to do and how to survive, so all that’s left… is to live.

It doesn’t take Clarke long to realize she's really,  _ really  _ bad at that.

Coming back to Earth is one thing. Coming back to Earth with no one to fight and no one to fight for is like crashing down from an adrenaline high that started when she was seventeen. Not fun.

And she’s alone.

It seems silly, but it feels true. Everyone has sort of...paired off. They all have someone. She used to have Madi, and doesn’t that just hurt like hell. Clarke is glad that Madi chose transcendence. In all likelihood, she would have outlived all of them, and someone as good as Madi didn’t deserve the burden of being the last human alive.

That still leaves Clarke where she is.

Each day the hole in her chest yawns a little wider accompanied only by guilt. A cycle.

Still, she won’t complain. Who would she complain to? The people who gave up eternal happiness so the consequences of her punishment wouldn’t be even worse? No.

She chops firewood, helps hunt, and sits alone at the lake… and she withers.

The others have noticed. She knows they have. She assumes they put it down to her mourning her daughter, so they don’t press and they give her her space. The emptiness yawns wider.

She is sitting on a log by the lake when The Judge intervenes.

“Taking your own life was not part of the agreement.” a voice that’s Lexa but so  _ not  _ Lexa says.

Clarke didn’t know how raw that loss still was until she saw them wearing Lexa’s face and using her calm wise cadence, and it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. “I wasn’t.”

The being sits. “You considered it briefly.” they say. “It seems a poor way to repay your loved ones sacrifice.”

Clarke bristles. “It was an intrusive thought. Am I not allowed to think freely any more?”

The Judge is quiet for a moment, and Clarke can’t help but drink them in. They wear her face and her clothes and even her rigid posture. Her head knows it isn’t Lexa, but just like the first time she saw The Judge, she longs to take the Lexa shaped god into her arms, if only to remind herself what holding the real thing felt like.

The Judge gives her that enigmatic little smirk that makes Clarke want to hit them and says “You may touch me if you wish.”

Clarke’s face darkens. “I’d rather not.”

A furrow appears between The Judge’s brow. “Yes you would. Why shouldn’t you? If it is a comfort-”

“It’s  _ not. _ ” she stresses, rising and making her way down to the lake. She strips as she goes, not bothering to feign modesty with an all knowing being who’s apparently keeping tabs on her thoughts.

“She wouldn’t want you to feel like this.” The Judge intones serenely, following her to the sparkling water. The Earth is clean and new, as though the past hundred or so years never happened. A utopia bursting with flora and fauna. 

The water is frigid when she submerges herself, and she can hear the current rushing in her ears. Her eyes ache behind her closed lids at the temperature.

The Judge continues, “If you could, would you bring her back?”

Clarke almost pretends not to hear them, but she breaks the surface and opens her eyes to find The Judge looking at her with an earnest question in their expression 

She sighs, “Madi is at peace. A selfish piece of me will always want her back, but transcendence was the right choice for her.”

“I wasn’t talking about Madi.” 

Clarke’s heart stops for a beat “Lexa.”

“Would you bring her back?” they ask.

In moments past, when she’s thought about it (And since her friends came back to be with her on Earth she  _ has  _ thought about it), the answer was clear: A resounding _ “Yes, God, please. I’ll do anything” _ , but now…

“Is she at peace?”

The Judge looks confused for the first time Clarke has known them “What?”

Clarke rolls her eyes at them and asks again “Is she at peace? Like Madi?”

A slow soft smile breaks out on not-Lexa’s face, and it hurts. The last time she looked like that sunlight steamed in through the window onto their naked bodies in her bed, and she was ripped from Clarke soon after. Clarke has to look away.

“In a manner of speaking.”

She takes a big breath. “Then no.”

She can tell she’s surprised The Judge, because their eyebrows shoot up. “But you love her?”

Clarke begins to rinse her hair in the water, already tired from this conversation and wishing fervently that the being who wears Lexa’s face but isn’t Lexa will get the hint and leave her alone.

They do not.

“Why, do you not want her back?”

“The same reason I wouldn’t bring Madi back.” she says quietly “Of any of us, Lexa deserved peace. She deserved a life free of pain and death.” Clarke grows angrier “She deserved  _ so much better _ than she got. So much better.”

Then, looking The Judge in the eye with a glare, she says “So  _ no _ , to answer your question, I would not tear the love of my life away from her well deserved peace and happiness because I’m a little lonely.”

“I fear you will be angry with me now.” The Judge says, smiling again. “You have passed, and I believe you have suffered too much not to deserve one last good thing.”

Clarke is just so tired. Tears of anger and exhaustion well up, and she feels naked in more ways than one. “Enough- I...” she chokes “ _ Enough _ . No more tests, and no more speculation about what I do and do not deserve, and no more wearing her face and using her voice, because I’m done. I get it. I failed, and now I’m alone. They sacrificed everything for me, and I’m still alone.” Her tears flow freely now, and she hates this god more than anything. 

“So I don’t care what test I’ve passed, and I don’t care what you think of me. I want to live out the rest of my days and forget my pain. Let time numb me, I don’t care anymore… I give up.” She shrugs, tears falling. Then she makes her way back to the shore, yanking on her clothes heedless of her sopping wet state. 

“Clarke, we’re giving her back to you.” The Judge softly consoles.

“What?” she freezes for a split second before finishing putting on her clothes “No- I just said”

“The choice was not yours. She refuses to leave you alone.”

“You- you’re lying. She died.”

“Her consciousness was imprinted in Madi’s mind. We believed it best to give her a choice as the others were given. She chose you.”

The Judge turns, but looks back over their shoulder one last time “Goodbye, Clarke Griffin. You won’t see me again.” 

Clarke scrambles to catch their wrist but they slip away, “Wait! How-” then she is alone.

Except for a quiet rustling behind her.

“ _ Klark _ .”

She can’t turn. Rooted to the spot, she cries, still soaking wet and shivering, because the voice sounds so good, and  _ no-  _ she damned humanity, she doesn’t deserve-

Two gentle hands slip around her waist, and she is pulled back against a warm soft chest. The sobs wrench even harder now, and she doesn’t know if she is incandescently happy or hideously miserable, because all the feelings blur together in one impressive panic attack.

The arms around her tighten, she is lowered to the ground when her knees give out, and pulled into a familiar lap. Fingers comb through her wet hair, and that  _ voice  _ shushes and croons sweet things that can’t be for her and-

“Shhh, hush,  _ niron _ . It’s alright. You’re alright. Breathe, Klark.  _ Breathe _ ”

Her eyes are screwed tight shut, but her ear is pressed against Lexa’s chest, and the strong thump of her heartbeat is mesmerizing. It soothes her until her ugly sobs are wet hiccups and she can breathe easier.

Lexa is here. On Earth. With her.

Lexa is humming a slow sweet tune and rocking her as she calms down.

Lexa is stroking her back and running lovely patterns through her hair, something she would have never been allowed back in the Kongeda as Heda.

Lexa is holding Clarke so tightly she feels more anchored that she has in years.

By the time the blonde can finally bring herself to open her eyes, Lexa is crying too, albeit less intensely than Clarke was but still, her bright green eyes shed little crystalline tears that land on Clarke’s cheeks when she looks up at her.

She isn’t dressed like The Judge. She isn’t even dressed in the clothes she died in, which Clarke is immeasurably grateful for. Instead, she wears dark denim pants and a soft long sleeve shirt that remind Clarke of the clothing on the Ark. Her hair has no braids, but falls down her back in wild curls. Clarke can't stop her hands from tangling in them, which pulls a damp chuckle from the woman cradling her. 

“Klark, are you alright?”

Clarke thought she was ok to speak, but when she opens her mouth nothing comes out but a hysterical laugh which only makes Lexa frown and hold her closer, That’s honestly fine with her. Lexa can do whatever she likes with her, and Clarke will still look at her like she’s a goddamn miracle.

“We need to get you warm, and then we can talk.” she whispers “Can you-” she starts to ask, but seems to decide against it, shaking her head, simply scooping Clarke up, and carrying her back along the path towards the camp.

It’s late, so no one is awake to see this. Clarke prays this isn’t a dream. She doesn’t know if she would survive waking up.

Lexa seems to inexplicably know her way to camp and to Clarke’s tent. (Something to ask about later) She shoulders her way past to flap to settle Clark onto the small stool in the corner. The blonde can only stare as Lexa gathers up her spare set of clean clothes and comes back to kneel in front of her, can only gaze mesmerized as she raises Clarke’s arms to strip her of her damp clothes and quickly redress her, can only gape unselfconsciously at her angel as lithe fingers graze her sides.

When she’s done, Lexa looks to be at a loss, still kneeling in front of her “Klark… you still haven’t said anything.” she looks truly concerned now “Please say something.”

Her voice is hoarse when she says, “I love you.” Her hands come up to hold Lexa’s face and press her forehead to her temple.

Clarke feels more than hears the answering “I love you too,  _ Niron. _ ” against her cheek.

“Why, though?” she has to ask “You had peace, you had-”

“ _ Shhhhh _ ” Lexa stops her with a hand on her wrist. “I didn’t have you. I wanted  _ you  _ and I would give up a thousand peaceful lifetimes for just one life together.”

Before she can respond, soft full lips find hers. Finally. 

Clarke rises then on shaky legs and pulls Lexa over to her bedroll. They only remove Lexa’s stiff denim pants.. They don’t go further than soft brushes of their lips. Instead, they sink down to hold one another and take each other in. 

Lexa looks older, closer to Clarkes age now, and a part of her mourns not being able to watch her age alongside her. She shakes it off. They have time now.

“I’m worried if I close my eyes you’ll disappear.” she whispers 

Lexa smiles into her neck “What if I promise not to?”

She chuckles. This is new. The Lexa she remembers was… funny, yes, but not this… free with her gentle teasing. Clarke likes it.

Arms encircle her waist and she and Lexa are pressed tight together sharing body heat 

“What is it like?”

“Transcendence?”

“Yes.”

“It’s like… floating on your back in a clear pond with your eyes closed. It's… freeing.” she sighs.

Clarke feels so small when she asks “What now?”

  
Bright green eyes blink up at her “Now?” Lexa pushes her onto her back and rests on her elbows hovering above her “Now, my love, we  _ live _ .”


End file.
